Building Better Techs: Why Training Changes Everything

We make the case for training as the fastest way to fix the low voltage talent gap and the surest path to mastery for working techs, leads, and managers. Practical tactics, field stories, and metrics show how to teach adults, keep attention, and prove ROI without a big budget.

• why training creates mastery, credibility, and purpose
• the trainer trifecta and adult learning principles
• Saturday 66‑block story and honoring admitted gaps
• industry shortfall and building a youth pipeline
• setting expectations, explaining the why, rewarding wins
• correcting in private and using guiding questions
• pairing strong and new techs, micro‑lessons, competition
• measuring impact with time, retest, and callback data
• engaging sessions with hands‑on gear and simple visuals
• starting as a trainer without a title or budget
• good vs great trainers and adapting on the fly
• humility, continuous learning, and teach‑backs

Make sure you stay tuned to the podcast because there's lots and lots of good stuff coming down. So until next time, remember, knowledge is power.

Chapters

• 0:00 Setting The Stage: Training Focus
• 2:45 Why The Industry Desperately Needs Trainers
• 6:20 The Trainer Trifecta: Speak, Know, Risk Being Wrong
• 8:55 Story Time: Saturday 66-Block Bootcamp
• 12:30 Benefits: Mastery, Credibility, Longevity, Purpose
• 16:45 Building The Pipeline: Schools, Youth, Fresh Hires
• 20:05 Managing Crews: Expectations, The Why, Rewards
• 24:10 New Trainer Pitfalls And Adult Learning
• 27:30 Phones, Engagement, Humor, Competition
• 30:15 Path To Trainer: Document, Volunteer, Certify
• 33:10 Correcting Privately, Guiding Questions, Ego Check
• 36:20 Mixed Speeds: Pairing And Micro-Lessons
• 38:50 Make It Measurable: Metrics That Protect Budgets

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:33

Couple great comments already off in TikTok feed. Let's go check them out real quick. Let me see what was one of those. Hey Chuck, sitting for the RCD test version 15 in a couple weeks. Any questions? Send them to me. I'll help you with that. What part of the country are you in? I am in Central Florida. You work for Panduit. Very cool. Very cool. Pandit's a good company. Good company. There's a lot of great companies in the low voltage industry. But tonight's show is a little bit different than most normal shows because tonight's show is focusing on training. Training. Now you might be wondering, well, Chuck, why should I worry about training? Right? Because I'm telling you right now, we need people in this industry. And the only way we're going to get people in this industry, the only way we're going to get good people in this industry is to train them. I can hear, but Chuck, these stupid young people, they don't want to learn anything. Yes, they do. Yes, they do. They do want to learn, but they want to learn their way, not our way. And we got to adapt. We have to adapt for them. They don't have to adapt for us. So let's get that straight right out of the out of the box now. Acronym challenge. We loved you guys in class today. Nice. Oh very good. You guys loved you in the class today. Very cool. Very cool today. So yeah, I taught the second half of that class today. And I'm a little bit more animated than the other instructor. I'll go ahead and say that. He's a great instructor, but I'm a little bit more animated. A little bit more animated. So you know Wednesday night, 6 p.m., we always start off with what are you drinking? What are you drinking? This isn't a half-hour show, so you can drink whatever the heck you want. I don't care. It doesn't make a difference to me. What's Chuck drinking? Earl gray tea. Earl gray tea. With two throat lozenges. You know you're an instructor when, you know you're a trainer when you put throat lozenges in your tea to help you after you because you just got done teaching a class. There you go. So tell me in the chat box. What are you drinking? Well, you I'm not drinking my normal Zevia, Zevia soda tonight, although I have one here just in case. So tell us in the chat box. What are you drinking? Wrong pipe. Gotta edit that out. Gotta edit that out. So tonight's show is about training. Why should you train? The benefits of training, and questions I get about training. Because I, you know me, I tend to hold on to questions and group them together and answer in one show instead of sporadically just putting them in anywhere and everywhere. Shotzi's in the house, died Dr. Pepper. Hello, Shotzi. Long time no see, my friend. Long time no see. So let's get right into this. So let's get right into the training thing. Already did one quip. You know you're a trainer when you put throat lozenges in your your warm fluids to help your help your your your your throat. Because I did teach today. I mean, I literally just finished teaching like two hours ago. Two hours ago. But let's let's talk about why train. Now, when I say train, I don't necessarily mean getting a job as a trainer, and that's all you do, like I do. That's that's pretty much all I do is train. Um you can be a trainer and still be a technician and still be a project foreman and still be a project manager doing your daily duties, doing your daily duties. You know, you don't have to dedicate your whole entire job to doing it. You know, some people, you know, doing training, you have to have what I call the trifecta. The trifecta. And what do I mean by the trifecta? Number one, you have to be a good public speaker. Number two, um, you have to know your stuff. Know your stuff. And number three, you can't be afraid to be wrong. You can't be afraid to be wrong, right? Hey, somebody's asked me in the in the TikTok feed, Tony Hunt. Hey, Tony. Hi, what is the roadmap to be an RCDD? Great question. Great question. Go to Google, type in, ready for I hope you get your pen, piece of paper, roadmap for RCD. Go in, type Google type in um RCD study handbook v.15. RCDD study handbook v dot one five. That'll that'll give you the roadmap. It'll tell you how the test is constructed, all that stuff. All that stuff. It's a great resource, a great resource. So everybody, except for the the greenest of green apprentices, should be a trainer, should be doing some type of training. Okay. Um I've been doing training. Well, my full-time job now, my full-time job with training, I've been doing it for 14 years. But I've always been a trainer. I have always trained people. I remember doing a project in Memphis, Tennessee. Memphis, Tennessee. We're doing a uh a call center. We were doing a call center, and we pulled some uh some copper backbone cable for the voice. And I remember I had a couple guys who came in who didn't normally work with me, but uh so they came in and they said, Hey Chuck, um, we might have a problem. I'm like, well, what's the problem? And they said, Well, Chuck, um we've never terminated 66 blocks before. Never terminated 66 block. How could you be in the industry and not have ever terminated a 66 block? Anyways, that's the first step right there. The first for first tip. If someone says they have a if they are if they're willing to lay their soul bare to tell you that they they lack in skills in something, honor that. Don't belittle them, okay? You know, especially for men, it's hard for us men to realize we are not good at something. So if someone comes and you says, hey, I like these guys did to me, Chuck, we don't know 66 blocks. So what I did was we literally just got done pulling this uh this this 200-pair cable, and it came on these six-foot wooden spools. So I told the guys, I said, Look, come in on Saturday. I said, I'm I'm not gonna pay you for this. This is teaching. You come in and learn. Come in on Saturday morning. If you come in Saturday morning, I will teach you how to terminate 66 blocks. And not only did those four people show up, they talked to other people on the crew, and more people showed up. So we did. I showed them how to lay out the cable, showed them how to tape it, show them how to maintain the binding groups, and uh showed them how to lace it and how to terminate it, you know. I showed them how to terminate regular style, voice style, and also data style. And at the time I was only a project manager, a project manager, I wasn't a full-time trainer. That was before I became a Bixie certified trainer a long, long, long, long time ago. So so why? So as an installer, as a project foreman, as a technician, why should you teach people? Why should you be a trainer? For number one, um, when you when you teach that I always used to say in teaching you learn and learning you teach, it reinforces what you already know. It helps you become better, helps you memorize things. People ask me, well, Chuck Chuck, how do you how do you know all those code things? Because I teach them all the time. That's why. That's why I know them. That's why I know all the stuff that I know is because I teach it all the time. I'm always in it. See, as a technician in the field, you might be pulling cable for the next two, three, four days, terminating cables. When was the last time you really thought about, hmm, what is what why does the code book say that I can't have my cable painted?

unknown: 8:26

Right?

SPEAKER_01: 8:26

So you don't initially think about it daily. I think about it daily because I'm always in it. So as a as a technician, project manager or lead tech, or even a tech who runs maybe one or two guys, right? You you bate you basically are impacting the industry. You're impacting the industry. Our industry is is in, I don't want to say it's in bad shape, but that we need a lot of people. We are we are nine, according to a Bixie conference I went to a while back, we are nine point eight million people short. 9.8, let's just call 10 million. 10 million people short in our industry. We need people in this industry. Okay. And we need so we need to get people in. The best person to bring in is somebody with no I got I just got read somebody reached out to me. I don't want to say who because the plans aren't finalized yet, but I just somebody reached out to me this week or last week. You would probably know the name if I mentioned it. There's a school district, I won't say where because I'll give away who it is. There's a school district, listen to this. They want to create a Bixie lab in their high school so they can teach high school kids how to pull, terminate, and test low voltage or limited energy cabling. And then that way they can come out with that class with maybe their their Bixie credential. Right? So that's so the best the best person to hire is to get somebody with very little experience. That way they haven't picked up any bad habits. They've been taught the wrong way. So as a trainer, you get to make that impact. You get to take your hard-earned knowledge. I've said this a million times over the last five years. I've got 43 plus years of experience in my head. I am just giving it away. Giving it away. Because I want the next group of installers, project managers, and estimators coming up behind me to learn from my mistakes and to excel faster. That is a sign of a good trainer. So you're teaching those people from making from keep from making your mistakes. Okay. The next benefit of for a lead tech or foreman, career longevity. Yes, teaching helps keep you in the game. But let's be honest. I told you earlier, we're aging out. But they're called the gray tsunami. The gray tsunami. So, for example, like uh this weekend, uh TKW is doing Text Giving up in Rhode Island. They're pulling cable for Sir Journer House. I can't be there because I'm traveling next week and teaching next week. But I am not as a spry, I'm not a spry young chicken like I used to be. I can't sprint up ladders anymore. I'm 61 years old. 61. So in teaching, it keeps you in the field, it keeps you, it keeps you in touch with what the field is doing. That's why I am in so many groups. Low voltage nation, TKW Slack channel, right? Telcom Tex. I'm always in them because I want to see what people are doing. And by being an instructor, it helps me because it keeps me in that groove. And here's it, if you want to stroke your ego a little bit, becoming a trainer gives you a credibility boost. Credibility boost. So and what does that mean? That means because typically trainers are seen as experts, seen as experts, and uh so that can open up opportunities for for jobs, for positions, consulting, uh, better pay, maybe even doing something your own your own side hustle. Okay, so it does that too. And being a trainer, you have to be continuous learning. You gotta stay in stuff all the time. You gotta stay sharp. I just did an episode on on the latest the 2026 code book, which is now out. The 2026 code book is out. You can go read the electronic version on uh on the nfpa.org. I ordered my 2026 code book. I'm waiting for it to come in now so I can actually read it. I mean, I kind of know the differences, but I want to read the actual verbiage to see how they changed it. So so being an instructor, it keeps you sharp, it keeps you in the codes, in the standards. And the biggest reason to become a trainer for my project main for my foreman and my leads, it gives you purpose beyond the job. Purpose beyond the job site. So, yeah, we're always focused on getting that cable in, getting it terminated, getting it tested. But as a trainer, as an instructor, you get to watch people grow, grow into their careers, grow into their positions. You get to watch people excel. I've had people that I've taught who've gone in higher positions than me. It just hits a little bit different, right? It just hits a little bit different, knowing that you've made that impact. For people who are in middle management, like my project managers, my estimators, right? It builds your talent pipeline. Builds your talent pipeline. So just to kind of give you an example, when I was an estimator for HM in Lorton, Virginia, when I got promoted to be the division estimator for HM for the for the uh for the whole division, one of the things when I got accepted that position, my boss told me, you got to find your replacement. Find your replacement. Now, at that point, I didn't do any kind of mentorship or training. So we had to hire somebody and then I had to train them. But if had I been working along, picking somebody, and over a couple of years, teaching a little bit here, a little bit there, that was gonna that would build a stronger team. And that reduces, for the HR department, that reduces the constant hiring headaches that they got to deal with. Okay. Also, if as a middle manager, if you train people, when you educate your crews, they're gonna make fewer mistakes. Fewer mistakes means less callbacks. Means you means you're they might get done faster, they might get done under the labor budget, under the material budget budget. Or and they might also even find um find workarounds to save stuff as well. Okay. So let's get into I got I got several questions, less your questions uh from people. Like I said, I've been saving over the last five weeks or so. This one is from Marcus on LinkedIn. He says, I am a project foreman, and my new hires don't listen until something breaks. How do I get them to care up front? Okay. Okay. Step number one. Communicate, communicate, communicate. That's probably tip number two on my list, by the way. Set the expectations on day one. Set you know, and after that, don't, you know, not not don't make those set, don't set those expectations after they've made those mistakes. Tell them, here's what we expect. I expect you to terminate all these hunter jacks and with with you know less than 5% failure or 3% failure, whatever the case may be. And then when something does go wrong, when something does break, instead of beating them up over the head, you did this wrong, you did that wrong, instead of beating them up over the head, how about teaching them, and here's the here's the key, tell them why it should be done that way. Why should it be done that way? Okay? When you make it into a training exercise, people start listening. If you just beat them up over the head, they hear the first couple words, and then they shut down emotionally, they shut down communications. Always, always give them the why. Always give them um real-world examples and real-world consequences. Look, if we do it this way, the way that you're doing it now, this cable's not gonna pass certification, we won't get warranty, we won't get paid. Right? We won't get paid. And also, here's another one for you. Uh, here's another one for you, uh, uh, Marcus. Reward productive behavior. Okay, don't just don't let the only time that the technician hears from you is when they're doing something wrong. If they do something great, give them a pat on the back, buy them a lunch, not not say every time, but enough to make them realize, hey, you're you're worthwhile. Okay, you're worthwhile. Uh this comes from Jenna on TikTok. She says, What's the biggest mistake that new trainers new trainers make? The biggest mistake that new trainers make. Number one, talking too much. You've got to listen. Slow down your talking. There's a there's a there's a uh TikTok um public speaker guy that Vin something or another. He's a I think Vietnamese or something. I can't remember his last name off the top of my head. And he always says, embrace the silence, don't be afraid of silence, right? Don't be afraid of silence. And and also don't forget, you're teaching adults, not children, not high school students, not elementary school students. You are teaching adults. Adults are tactile learners, so try to incorporate as much hands-on as you can. And also make sure you also um avoid avoid skipping the fundamentals. I do this every single class. I ask, every single class, I always ask them how many years of experience everybody has. And even if I have a class full of a whole bunch of experience, full of a whole bunch of experience, I still teach the basics, the color code, pulling tangents, microbins, macrobins. Because you know what? They may have been taught wrong. They may have been taught wrong. Right. And then uh, and then also another mistake that a lot of trainers make that I see is they don't check for understandings while they're teaching. Right. So, you know, every once in a while you gotta start you learn to read body language as a trainer. Uh so you can start recognizing when somebody's kind of lost, and you can stop at that point. But sometimes some people are good at hiding that. So don't be afraid to stop and say, Hey, are there any questions? Do I need to go back and review and review anything? Don't be afraid to do that. Question number three from Omar. He says, I train apprentices, but half the time they're on their phones. How do I keep their attention? That's a good one. Because a lot of people in today's environment are on their phone all the time, including me. My wife will tell you that. She'll tell you I'm on the phone all the time. But I'm on the phone for business. Yeah, yeah, that's it. I'm on the phone for business. So the best thing to do for that type of a student, for the student who's always on their phone, make their training interactive, not a lecture, right? Or maybe, maybe create small little short videos, because that's that's how they consume information, right? Tie and make sure that when you do this, that you tie each topic into something that's going to affect their paycheck. They'll listen. They'll listen when it's going to affect their paycheck, trust me. And then another good thing too is use humor. Use humor. I do this all the time in my classes. But be careful. You know, some people like so I I'm I'm huge on sarcasm. Huge. Sarcasm doesn't resonate with some people. So I rarely will do sarcasm in a class. Rarely, because I know that some people won't get it. So be careful with with with with uh with humor, right? And then uh and then also let them let them compete. People in the field love to compete against each other. My brother and I did a project once for MCI WorldCom in uh uh where was it? I want to say it was Norfolk. He was terminating a closet, I was terminating a different closet, we were terminating six to six blocks. I could hear him, you know, he was far he was I he was close enough. I could actually hear him chink, chink, chink, chink, chink, chink. And uh so I started terminating, and all of a sudden I hear him going faster. I'm like, how's he going faster than me? Because at the time he'd only had, I don't know, maybe a year's worth of experience or so. And so when I went over to check him, he literally had to punch against the wall and he was just going chink, chink, chink, chink, chink, chink, chink. He goes like, yeah, I just wanted to think I was faster than you. We like to compete. We like to compete. Leah from YouTube is asking, I want to be, uh I want to move ahead to be a lead tech into a full-time training. Where do I even start? Oh man, that's a great question. So, number one, document your proc your processes and the lessons you've learned. Don't be afraid to write them down. Don't freak be afraid to put them in a in some type of a book. Like I always you see me floating around, you always always have a little notebook. I'm always writing stuff in it. Document everything that you do, volunteer to teach, you know, like in our industry, we like to do like safety tailgates, um, weekly tailgates. Yeah, volunteer to teach one of them, or two of them, or three of them. That will definitely help you. Definitely help you. Um also maybe think about getting your your certification if you don't already have it. You know, the FOA certification, Bixie certification. There's even other ones out there too, like um oh, my names are skipping escaping me right at the top of my head. I'll think of them. Light Brigade, that's one of them. And uh just don't be afraid to teach. And and just like I said, you don't have to be you don't have to wait until you get the formal position. Pick something you're really good at, ask around, get two or three people to sit in a class, and then teach them. And do that time and time and time again. As a as an instructor, when I when I sit in a class, I'm actually two students. One student to learn the concept, the other student to uh learn how they're teaching, to see if there's something I can glean from that to make me a better teacher. I'm always looking to be just a little bit better than I was the last time. Just a little bit better. Ethan from LinkedIn asks, what's the best way to correct mistakes without embarrassing somebody? Okay, follow the old adage, right? Correct in private, praise in public. Correct in private, praise in public. Also, make sure that you ask guiding questions instead of accusing. Why did you terminate that way? I'm just curious. Why did you why did you why did you do the the the uh the the reference that way? Okay, instead of saying you did it wrong, again, maybe they weren't taught before and they're just kind of work their way through it. Focus on the behavior, not the person. Focus on that behavior. Um, you know, and that's gonna get you a long ways. Also, make sure that um that when you do make sure you keep your ego in check. Okay, make cu keeping ego in check. Um that keeps you that that keeps their ears open so they listen to you, and uh you don't have less of those kinds of issues. Okay, Ethan, hope that helps you. Next one's from Tasha from Instagram. She says, My crew learns at different speeds. Yep, yep, yes, indeed, absolutely. My crew learns at different speeds. How do I train them without losing the fast ones? So if you're teaching in a face-to-face class, which is absolutely the best way to teach, it's the best way to teach people in this industry, face-to-face. I don't care what anybody else says. That's the best way. Pair the strong technicians with the newer ones. I do this all the time in my classes, you know, because when we do the hands-on stuff, uh, again, I always ask how many years of experience everybody has, and I try to make sure they all get put into groups so that way if somebody struggles, because I can't keep an eye on every single student at the same time. So that way the strong person can actually help the person who maybe has never turned money before, right? I also use micro micro learning sessions. Bixie just started doing this, micro lessons, 15 to 20 minutes, and that's all it takes. You know, and you'd be surprised how fast, how fast information accumulates when you do those micro sessions, right? Rob from TikTok asks, how do I turn training into something measurable for management? Wow. Whoa, that is a great question. That's a great, great question. What quite often happens is in lean times, the first budget that's cut is the training budget. Every single time. When you need it the most, you need it the most, you need you need efficient people who don't make mistakes, so you're not sending technicians back to fix things. You need training the most when the economy is not going very well. So the first thing you do is number one, track the people and what they're doing, right? Set set learning goals. So so for example, when I was a tech when I was an estimator, I I would go out and look at jobs I've already estimated that we've won and they're out there doing them under the guise of a QA. And I would sit there and talk to the project manager, and as I'm talking to the project manager, I would pick a tech and I would watch them. Okay, they started at that cubicle, they ended at that cubicle, okay. That's 25 jacks. They did that in X amount of minutes. I used to used to keep me sharp as an estimator. You can also use that in turning something measurable for management. You can say, hey, look, the average termination time right now is nine minutes for a Cat 6A Jack, which that's horrible, by the way. Horrible. So what you might want to do is you might want to say, okay, I can get that down to five minutes, and then do the trainings and then document that. Track the before and after metrics and also document, um, keep track of how many times people are getting, uh, you're having to go back to fix things. You should see a decrease in that number. All right. And that's gonna help you help you make those impacts because that's all management's all about that, right? They're all about what's measurable, what's measurable? Well, not everything's measurable, okay? Some things you do just because it's the right thing to do. Training your people is the right thing to do. Period. End of the paragraph. Turn the page, close the book, put the book back up on the shelf. Okay, it's the right thing to do every single time. Crystal from Facebook, what do you what do you do when someone just doesn't want to be trained? Okay. There are people like that. There are people out there that feel like they know more than you. There are people out there that, you know, they may be, they might be fearful. Oh my God, I don't want to learn fiber because uh it's dangerous. Or there might be burnout. Ask them what is stopping them. Involve them in maybe to teaching some of the smaller parts of the class. That's a great way to get people involved again. Just make sure that you set clear expectations and timelines, right? And then that'll help do that. And you know, the thing is, is if that doesn't work, know when to escalate that issue, know when to replace that person. Leave that there. Question number nine. This is from Diego from LinkedIn. Our company wants internal trainers. What makes a good one? The biggest thing that makes a good trainer patience, not perfection. Nobody's perfect. Nobody's perfect. I I'm after I teach classes all the time, and and I'm telling you, I say stupid stuff all the time. Or I forget stuff all the time. Just be, you know, just remember, don't be afraid to be to say that you forget things. Or you don't know. Don't be afraid to admit you don't know everything. Okay? Don't be afraid to admit that. Right. Also, you better have a good love of repetition. I've been teaching my day jobs class for 14 years. I've taught, you do the math. Two to three cables, two to three classes a week times 48, 49 weeks out of the year times 14 years. I'd know the class. And it's good, it gets repetitive sometimes. But what I'll do is I'll go around, hey, buddy, tell me how many years of experience you have. So that way I can make the class fit for just them. And it gives me, it challenges me as an instructor as I'm going through the same PowerPoint slides. How do I tie it into this group that has a majority of less than two years experience? How do I teach this class who have a majority of 20 plus years experience? So that way you might do different things. And that kind of gets you out of that same old same old. That's a great thing to do. Same thing to do. And that's a Nia from YouTube asks, How can I make my training sessions more engaging? Okay. You didn't you didn't really tell me what problems you have, but I'm telling you right now, real cable, real connectors, come up with real scenarios. Maybe even if you can, if you're if you're an internal trainer for your company, a cable installation company, maybe get some certifiers in there. Put hands on stuff. You will get all kinds of questions. All kinds of questions. Also make sure make sure you keep your visuals simple and bold. I hate you, nothing drives me more baddie to be in a class that somebody puts up a PowerPoint slide that has 75 words on it. I don't have time to read 75 words.

unknown: 28:40

Right?

SPEAKER_01: 28:41

And neither does the inst neither does the person. The person can't read 75 words and comprehend what you're teaching them all at the same time. Okay, they just can't. I don't care. If somebody tells you they can, they're wrong. Connor from TikTok wants to know how do I train somebody older than me? Ooh, this is a good one. How do I train somebody older than me without coming off arrogant? Okay, so first off, respect their experience up front. That's the big thing. Usually when there's a conflict like that, um, it's usually because there's not enough respect between those two people. I have worked for people younger than me, I've worked for women, I've worked for people of different colors, and one thing I've learned is everybody's on a different path, and you know what? Their path might be further faster accelerated than mine. So I I as an as as a trainer, if somebody younger than me comes up to me and says something, and I, you know, and I know that it's true, I'm not gonna I'm not gonna I'm not gonna think that's arrogance. But the R old people get kind of stuck in their ways. They do. So frame it as maybe sharing an update, not as a teaching moment, right? Say, oh look, hey, you know, the new code book's out, and and I just saw on this podcast, um, here's the new here's the new things that's coming out in the 2026 code book. That was last Last week's episode, by the way. Yes. So make sure you keep that tone factual. Don't make it personal. And show humility in your body language. There's a lot of great videos on there, you know, about body language and how to portray power, how to portray humility. Watch some of those videos. I all I'm always watching those things. Always watching things. And make sure that you follow up with that person who privately and say, hey, thank you for being open. Kim from LinkedIn says, when I train, I feel like I'm talking into a void. How do I know they're actually learning? Well, that's something I face every day teaching virtual classes. Because I'm really just looking at a camera. I'm looking at a screen. Unless it's a good class that's interacting with me in the chat box, I am literally talking to a computer. And you have to be, you have to be energetic. You have to be so you know let's let's say that in real, let's say in a in a in a face-to-face scenario, I might be this energetic. In a virtual class, I'm going above that. I'm going to the point where I almost think it's absurd. Because when it goes through a computer, when it goes to a virtual platform, it it brings it down some. Because if you just talk normally, you know, it they're going to think this guy's not even interested. So I go above and beyond. Above and beyond. So so one of the ways you can measure if you're actually making an impact is use teach backs. So show them something, let them terminate, play with a couple times, and say, okay, now pretend I'm a student and teach it back to me. Remember, I told you earlier. In teaching, you learn and learning you teach. Right? Ask scenarios. Don't don't don't just do yes and no questions. Ask them to really give you detailed, detailed observations and watch their performance, not their confidence. There's a lot of people who can can confidently terminate something wrong. Right? Just but watch your performance. Okay. Gerald from Facebook was asking. Let me see. We have no training budget. How can I teach effectively? Great question. There's a lot of great resources out there. A lot of the manufacturers have free training on YouTube and on their platforms. Cable Installation Mains magazine does two webinars a month. Bixie Every Once in a Blue Moon will put out a free webinar. Just use them. And I do this, I do this with every group that I'm interactive with. You know, again, TKW, low voltage nation. If something comes out free, especially from Bixie, I put it in those groups. Hey guys, look, here's a free class, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. That's gonna help a lot. That's gonna help a lot. And then, you know, you can also cross-train. That's an easy one. So if you've got somebody who's really good with fiber, put them on a crew that's that's mostly copper. Because they might have only done fiber in their entire career, or vice versa. Cross-training them by just putting putting them in the field with other crews doing other things. And then also make sure that you encourage um self-learning. Self-learning. Almost every manufacturer has some type of a learning platform. Use it. Use it. Alicia from YouTube asks, What separates a good trainer from a great trainer? I don't know. I'm still looking for that difference. I can I only consider myself a good trainer. I have people tell me all the time I'm a great trainer, but I don't I have a problem with accepting compliments. I just do. I consider myself a good trainer. But I in my eyes, a great trainer is going to learn how to adapt instantly to the learner. I mentioned that earlier. People don't like to learn the these new kids. Okay, so maybe adapt your training into a way that they it resonates with them. Track their growth, not just their attendance, right? How many people pass, how many people come back to learn more, and then make sure that you connect that training with lessons in life, not just the scope of work or the or the specs. You want to make sure that you build confidence, not dependence. You want to create independent thinkers so that way when they finish one task, they don't have to come to you and say, uh boss, I'm uh uh uh I'm done, I'm done putting in the J hooks. Now what do I do? Pull the cable. You don't want robots, you want people who can think for themselves. Think for themselves. All right. Question number 15, Jay from TikTok wants to know. Whoops, I went a little too high on my notes there. How do I know if I'm ready to start teaching others? Are you breathing? You breathing, then you're ready. That's how you teach that's how you know. All right, so as I said, there everybody, except for maybe the newest of the newest people, should be training. Um, especially if you're the type of peop person like me who enjoys watching other people succeed. Other people and I learned that from my mentor. My mentor, he trained a guy who actually eventually became his boss. And I asked him one day, doesn't that bother you that the guy that you trained is now your boss? He's like, No. No, because I'm I take joy in knowing that that person got to that position because of me. Right. So if you enjoy watching other people succeed, I think you're ready. When your advice improves results, then there's not going to be any arguments. And and again, most most classes, unless you really fail, your students are gonna tell you you did good. Right. But but don't take that for for betum. What you might want to do is maybe again, like I said, I'm always looking, how can I be 10% better? I I did a a meeting, I think it was last week. Might have been the week before. Heck, I don't know. These these last eight weeks have been just all blurred together. My personal life, my work life, the podcast life, everything's just been coming at me both with both barrels. And so I was sitting, I did this meeting, and I sat down with these guys with lunch afterwards, and I said to them after we got done, they were like, Oh, Chuck, you did a great job. You did a great job. Yeah, yeah, whatever. You know, again, I have a hard time collect, you know, accepting compliments. And so I said to them, Give me one thing that I can do to be 10% better next time. Next time we do something like this. That's the best way to approach that. It truly is. Because if somebody's honest with you, yes, they will give you something. It might be one little thing. One little thing, right? And then as an as a trainer, again, let go of your ego. Be be willing to be wrong gracefully. Be willing to be wrong gracefully. There again, there have been many times I have I've been teaching something. I I'll give you an example. Uh I just I just did this, gosh, uh, during this last eight weeks, I was teaching a class on the road somewhere, and I made a statement about testing fiber optic cable, doing um um dual wavelength bidirectional testing, and I said something in class, and then the the person, not one of the students, but one of the other people who was there who helped me administer the class, said to me, I think you're wrong. And I said, Well, you know what? I'll just shoot an email and get a confirmation. And sure enough, the confirmation came back. I was wrong. So I went back to that person, you're absolutely correct. I was wrong, man. So I have to change my I have to change my thought process on how on how to deliver that. Be willing to be wrong because everybody's wrong at some point, some place. And also realize that teaching, it feels like giving, not proving things. You're giving people knowledge to make them more efficient, to make them better, to make them faster. And you also need to realize that learning never stops. Learning never stops. The most dangerous person in one of my classes is a person who says, I've been doing this for 15 years, I know everything. That's the most dangerous person. I usually respond back to that person. I've got 43 years of experience. I don't know everything. I don't know everything. And if I don't know everything, I know you don't know everything. So there you go. That's that's the most common. Let's look at some of the questions that came in that I might have missed because I had a bunch of them. Uh Tyler says, I teach monthly code skill classes to our techs, and I think I learned more from them both. Yeah, absolutely. Gavin's in the house. Hey, uh, a ship is only good as its captain. If the crew is solid, the captain is doing his job. Uh let's put these up on the how do I show them on the street. There we go. Uh the ship is only good as the captain. The crew is a if the crew is is solid, the captain is doing his job. Teach to be replaced, not to be left behind. Oh, I love that. I love that. And then again, Tyler, I'll put his comment up there too. He says, I teach monthly code and skill classes to his text, and I think more of them, I think I learn more from them than books. Oh, I learn stuff from students all the time. All the time. All the time. And then Shotzi, my one of my one of my favorite students. If you know it, pass it on. I love that comment, Shotzi. Love that comment. Uh, what's wrong with my mic? You know what? I bet you I know what's wrong with my mic. I bet you I left my earbuds on. Dang it, man. There we go. Let me know if you can hear it better now, user 594-370-970548. Because I forgot to turn off my headphone. So it's picking up this mic instead of the mic on the phone. I apologize for that. I apologize for that. Alrighty, so we have any other we don't have any other new questions coming in. I went nine minutes over. So, what I'm gonna go ahead and do is go ahead and close this out. So um keep in mind, got lots of great stuff coming down the pike. Make sure you stay tuned to the podcast because there's lots and lots of good stuff coming down. So until next time, remember, knowledge is power.